Baseball Is A Part Of Daily Life For Many People
I have often wondered why I have such a love for the game of baseball, it is sometimes long and the action sometimes is slow, but it continually comes back to me that so many aspects of the game are a direct representation of the way life is. Life lessons are displayed daily on the the baseball diamond, and we simply have to be paying attention to soak in the knowledge. Following are some of those observations.
Keep your Head In the Game
If you are not in the starting line up, or you do not like your role, always be ready and keep your head in the game because the opportunity to show what you can do could come at any time. Taking advantage of an opportunity is how your preparation and attitude meet this chance. In life if you are not happy in your current position or job, you have to keep a positive attitude and prepare for your opportunity to shine. You never know who you are going to meet or what situation you may be in. Be prepared and you just may find your dream job doing what will make you happy.
Believe In Yourself
You can strike out three times in a game, but hit a game winning home run in your fourth at bat and the day is a success. This happens all the time in life, you are at work and the day or week or year may seem to be going right down the outhouse hole. But then there is a pitch you can hit, and you don’t miss it. You hit it out of the park! Just when your team needed you the most. The three strikeouts are forgotten and you are remembered for being the hero. This can only happen if you keep your focus, maintain your concentrated effort and believe in yourself.
Keep Your Focus
Sometimes it seems slow and that there is nothing happening. Keep your focus and maintain your effort and you will most likely be rewarded with the opportunity to be great. In life, days, weeks and even years can seem to be slow and boring with little happening. Don’t waste your time bitching and complaining. Life is too short for that. You are the main catalyst of your life, and you determine how exciting things are. Since that is the case, why would you waste time complaining about it? You have to maintain your focus and when given the opportunity make something happen that is not slow or boring. You may be the catalyst for your own life if you look to be.
Things Change Quickly
A promising start to an inning can lead to absolutely nothing. Bases loaded with nobody out can turn into a strikeout and a double play with no runs scored in a matter of a few pitches. In life that means don’t get too excited when things look promising, they can change for the worse in very short order. Appreciate it when things are going your way. Enjoy the moment fully, but don’t get carried away that the game is already over. As Yogi said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
Prove Yourself Continually
No matter how good you have been, you have to maintain the effort and performance or you will find yourself out of the game. Being great and thinking your great are two different things. In life, even if you have been successful in the past, if you stop putting in the effort you have, or let your preparation slide you may find yourself out of a job or relationship before you know it.
You’ve Got to Put the Past Behind You
Put your yesterday’s behind you, good or bad they won’t help you perform today. Every day is a new chance to win a game. In life this can be hard to do but it is a must. You can’t look back and wish for the past to return, because it won’t. Learn from your experiences, treasure the memories, but use those experiences to fuel your future or you will be standing in place for years, wondering what might have been and missing out on great opportunities for growth. You have unlimited potential to grow and succeed, let those situations find you!
Team is Most Important
The greatest individual players, can’t win on a consistent basis without a competent team around them. In life this is fairly obvious. You can be an outstanding individual talent at whatever you are doing, but without a competent group of people behind you in the workplace or at home it will be difficult to be successful consistently. At the very least having great “teammates” at home and on the job will make your achievement easier. Find good teammates!
It’s A Game of Inches
It is a game of inches. Just fair. Just foul. The difference between winning and losing often comes down to the inches. It is always easier to finish on top when luck is on your side. In life often times it also comes down to inches. These inches aren’t as visible as they are in baseball, but they do exist. One simple decision here, a little extra effort there, one poor decision, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life and success is a game of inches and sometimes it just comes down to luck. You can increase your chances of finding good luck by doing the right things every day. Be honest, interact with positive people, do the right thing all of the time even when it isn’t easy. The inches will shrink and success will be easier.
Take What They Give You
Take what they give you. If you continually try to hit how you want to and not what they give you, you are going to constantly hit weak ground balls to the infield. Go with the pitch and you will find more success. In life you can pound your head against the wall and insist on things being the way you envision them, even when they are clearly not working and you will end up experiencing failure. Change your approach when things aren’t going your way and take what life and circumstances are giving you and success will come much easier.
Do Your Job
Do your job and usually your team will be successful. Moving a runner along, hitting a fly ball deep enough to score a runner from third with less than two outs, rather than just swinging the bat for no purpose, will give you focus and allow your team the best chance it has to win. In life, you are not always going to be the superstar, or the hero, sometimes in life the biggest heroes are the people who consistently do their job to the best of their ability regardless of what is required of them. By always doing their job, they will become invaluable to the success of the business they are in or the family that they have. By comparison the person who fails to consistently do their job will be shipped out, to the minor leagues or to the unemployment line. 
Jump at Opportunities
Take advantage of the opportunities the game gives you for success. In every game and in life, there will be an opportunity for you to perform and help your team win. Be ready for the opportunity. You can sit around and be negative because you feel that things aren’t going your way. If you waste your time worrying about things that you can’t control you will not be ready when that opportunity does show itself to you. Keeping a positive frame of mind will help you take advantage of the opportunities that life will inevitably present to you. Sit on the bench and sulk or be ready to jump into the game with all your heart.
Sometimes You Fail
Sometimes you just strike out. Even when you prepare and do everything right, it is no guarantee of success. Sometimes you just strike out. That is life and that is baseball. It is kind of a scary thing that you can prepare, be positive, look for your opportunities, be a good teammate, work hard and do everything right, and still when the opportunity presents itself you fail. What baseball teaches us about this is that you can’t let one failure, no matter how large, stop you from pushing forward and searching for your next success. There will be a new game, with new chances for greatness coming tomorrow. Keep doing the right things and next time you may not strike out, you may hit the game winning home run. Maybe. Nothing in baseball is guaranteed. What is guaranteed is that if you quit and stop trying you will never experience that success.
Life isn’t Fair
Baseball is not always fair. Along the same lines as sometimes you strike out, baseball is not always fair. Life is also not fair. It never has been and it never will be. You can spend time worrying about this but it is a fact and it is 100% out of your control so you can’t do anything to change it. How is baseball not fair? Umpires often make bad judgement calls that are clearly wrong and cost a player individual production and even a team wins. In life we often deal with bad calls from umpires, getting an undeserved poor evaluation, getting passed over for a promotion you deserve, having your pay cut, losing your job, the list goes on and on. Just like in baseball, it’s not the bad call or the unlucky break or the unfair thing that occurred, it is how you react afterwards that defines you, in the game and in life. It is not an easy thing to do when life seems to be pitching a no hitter against you to stay positive and keep working hard, but inevitably that is what must happen for you to find success or win the game.
The Final Tally
Finally, no matter what you do, eventually the game will end and the final score will be tallied and the statistics of that day will be remembered. The heroic acts and failures will become a part of history and each player who participated will be evaluated, revered, remembered or forgotten for whatever they accomplished on that day. In life it is much the same, eventually it will end and at that time you will no longer have control over what kind of life it was. Was it a blowout? Did you dominate from birth to death and get elected to the hall of fame? Was it a game full of fantastic comebacks, unbelievable gaffs, retribution, and ultimate heroics? The fact is that as the innings of life pass you have to keep your focus on what you can do to get the job done. Learn from the failure and keep giving your all until the final pitch is thrown. Baseball is indeed like life, and the most important thing you can do to be happy is enjoy the game.
Poems about Baseball
There’s No Crying In Baseball
Classic baseball scene, because no matter how badly things go for you, there is no crying allowed, it won’t do you any good or get you any hits at all. No Crying is not an acceptable public reaction to bad luck or poor play.
Field of Dreams: People Will Come.
The classic explanation by James Earl Jones (Terrance Mann) about why baseball is a symbol of hope for everyone, and people will come to Iowa to look at a field to remember all that was good once and could be again.
Roy Hobbs Homerun St The End of The Natural
Perhaps the most prolific and symbolic movie homerun. Kirk Gibson’s real homerun against the A’s in 1988, was almost immediately compared to Roy Hobbs fictional blast. Today, they play the music whenever Josh Hamilton hits a homerun in Texas, and I am sure in almost every ballpark in America when a key homerun is struck.
Homerun By Roy Hobbs Into Clock At Wrigley Field
When your struggling in a bad slump, sometimes it’s the woman you are with. For Roy Hobbs that was the case. Just the site of the “Woman in White.” His high school sweetheart, whom he left behind because of some poor choices in his life, was enough to remind Hobbs about who he really was. Redemption is a theme that is played out in real life over every season in hundreds of different ways.
Game Called By Grantland Rice
My favorite baseball poem of all time. It applies to not only baseball, but to life in general, because when it’s all said and done, what people will remember about you is how you played the game, or in the more real sense, how you lived your life.
Filed under articles and stories, Philosophy, Things I Like by on . Comment. 
A Ship Carrying A Choice You Made
I was having a discussion with a friend the other day about all of the things we had done that in retrospect seemed like bad ideas. Failed relationships, poor decisions, wrong turns on the path of life all came up, and my friend said the magic phrase, “If I knew then what I know now, things would be different. If I could only do it all over again.” That thought is probably one that everyone has had at some point in their lives. I, myself, have thought this before, but not any longer. If given the opportunity to go back in time and make different choices, I would have to pass and here is why.
First of all, it is common to look back with a sense of nostalgia, and not with realism. Choices were made for a reason. You have no way of knowing how a change in your life would effect you today. Things could have turned out much worse for you. It was best explained to me this way, if you picture all of those choices you didn’t make as ships sailing in the distance, you can see the sails, full of wind pushing them off into the horizon. You are wasting your time chasing them with regret, because you will never catch them and you don’t know what is beyond the horizon. Those ships may have carried you to some very unsavory and unwanted results. Things could have been much worse for you if you made a different choice. When we think of doing things differently we only focus on an idealistic, positive result. When the result could have been disastrous. Since you could be far better off with the choice that you did make, thoughts like this appear to be a waste of effort.
Secondly, always questioning the decisions you made in the past will make it much more difficult to enjoy what you do have today. You may have a good job, or a relationship you value, and you wont be giving them your full attention and enjoying them as much as you could, if you waste your energy pining away about the past and what might have been. Every one of life’s choices is a potential learning experience, and usually the choice of whether it was a good or a bad choice is made solely by you. You can choose to get something good out of almost every situation you encounter, or you can choose to get something bad, it is all up to you. So why not enjoy what you have today and appreciate the experiences that have gotten you here, rather than spend your days rehashing old mistakes and carrying around the regret of what might have been.
Third, one of the great things about getting older is that we do, even if we don’t try, gain experience and with it a form of wisdom. From the day we are born, we are constantly learning new things that allow us to navigate the sometimes difficult channels of life. Some people take much more advantage of these learning experiences than others. Without all of the “mistakes” we have made along the path of life, we would lose much of the hard earned wisdom and knowledge we have gathered over the years. Everybody has the ability for good and to live a life that provides satisfaction to them and makes the world a better place. Regretting your decisions of the past is a form of self loathing that decreases your self esteem and makes living a positive life more difficult. If you dislike your choices so much, you must dislike who you have become, and it is hard to be happy when you are forced to face a person in the mirror every day that you are not very fond of.
You Choose to be Whatever you want
Finally, we all have the ultimate choice as to what type of person we are to be. Regardless of all of the choices we have made. What you did yesterday, or ten years ago or twenty years ago has very little to do with who we choose to be today. Nothing can stop you from being positive except yourself. Nothing can stop you from being productive except yourself. Nothing can stop you from being great except yourself. The past is stored in the great attic of your mind, it is ok to remember, and visit and pour over past experiences to glean wisdom, but to carry around a profound sense of regret about things will get you nowhere. Today is the next great day of your life and you can choose to make it so or choose to turn it into another moment you will regret in the future as you watch it sail into the horizon.
Quotes about Regrets:
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
John Barrymore
Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.
Henry A. Kissinger
Apologizes are pointless, regrets come too late. What matters is you can move, on you can grow.
Kelsey Grammer
Chris Cooper once told me to never have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walk into every scene thinking, ‘exhaust every possibility.’ Once you get to a certain place, it’s like you just deliver everything you’ve got. Don’t have any regrets. It pops up in my mind over and over and over again.
Jake Gyllenhaal
For my own part, I abandon the ethics of duty to the Hegelian critique with no regrets; it would appear to me, indeed, to have been correctly characterized by Hegel as an abstract thought, as a thought of understanding.
Paul Ricoeur
Had we not pursued the hydrogen bomb, there is a very real threat that we would now all be speaking Russian. I have no regrets.
Edward Teller
Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.
Louisa May Alcott
Having regrets and things, it just takes your time away.
Leif Garrett
He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.
Edith Wharton
I already gave my best. I have no regrets at all.
William Hung
I do not allow myself vain regrets or foreboding.
Mary Chesnut
I don’t have a lot of regrets in my life.
Cathy Freeman
I don’t have any regrets. When I quit college and moved to Los Angeles to become an actress, it was so that I would not look back and have any regrets.
Amy Weber
I don’t really believe in regrets.
Wayne Newton
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about regrets because there’s nothing I can do.
Sheryl Crow
I felt that I ostracized myself by my behavior, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes, that I sort of wore a hair shirt and beat myself up most of the day thinking and regretting why did I make such a mistake? Why have I made so many mistakes?
Sarah Ferguson
I gave everything in my career so I have no regrets at all.
Michel Patini
I have a lot of regrets, but I’m not going to think of them as regrets.
Debbie Harry
I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.
Katharine Hepburn
I have no regrets about launching Salon. For the life of me, I can’t imagine doing anything else.
David Talbot
I have no regrets about my life.
Jane Badler
I have no regrets because I did everything by the book.
Alexis Arguello
I have no regrets in my life. I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.
Rita Mero
I have no regrets. I don’t believe in looking back. What I am proudest of? Working really hard… and achieving as much as I could.
Elena Kagan
I have no regrets. I wouldn’t have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.
Ingrid Bergman
I have no regrets. I’ve got my health.
Naomi Campbell
I have to say that I have no regrets about my decision to become a priest or about the major directions my ministry has taken me… I have been and am happy as a priest, and I have never been lonely… I could have used a bit more solitude.
Andrew Greeley
I think it’s very good to have regrets, to learn how to live with them.
Keren Ann
I think you always have regrets.
Clint Walker
I try to live my life where I end up at a point where I have no regrets. So I try to choose the road that I have the most passion on because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices. You can always say you’re following your passion.
Darren Aronofsky
I usually say I did the best I could with what I had. I have no major regrets.
Stokely Carmichael
I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.
David Herbert Lawrence
I will not comment on or confirm what are alleged to be stolen State Department cables. But I can say that the United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential, including private discussions between counterparts or our diplomats’ personal assessments and observations.
Hillary Clinton
I’m not gonna try to defend, or undo what’s been done. All I could say about whatever’s been done, it’s been done, and it’s water under the bridge. I have no regrets of my life.
Ike Turner
I’m very lucky, I’m happy with life because my experiences led me to do what I had to do. I don’t have any regrets whatsoever.
Van Morrison
[cincopa A8OAoq6aXejk]
Filed under articles and stories, Philosophy by on . Comment.
Winning The Battle In Each Of Us
Winning the Inner Battle
Inside every person in the world there exists a conflict between your two selves. Students of psychology have several different names for these “voices” , some refer to them as your ego, or perhaps your super ego, but for my purposes I will address these two voices as Self I and Self II. These two entities are constantly battling for control of your thoughts and your actions. If you don’t believe it, who answers you in your head when you ask the simplest question? One voice asks, the other one answers. It happens all of the time. Now let’s get to meet your two voices.
Meet Your Ego
Self I(ego, primitive self, jerk, whatever you want to call it.) is your stern voice, it is a know it all, who does nothing but issue commands and judges every result. This is the voice that will tell you that you are stupid for trying, or that will never work, or call you an idiot when things don’t quite turn out the way that you hoped. This voice has been building inside you since you were born to protect you from disappointment, to keep you safe. It doesn’t mean to stagnate your growth or cause you to carry around an impossibly negative attitude towards everything and everybody. You will see this voice in evidence in people who are continually judging others and always believing that their way is the best way. Now their way may be, in fact the best way, but if someone is dominated by this voice, they will never seek anything outside of their experience because to do so, would put at risk the status quo and that would be too scary for them to deal with. Fear of the unknown can make many an individual cling to their old ways and habits, simply because although they may be bad, they are a known entity, and better to feel bad continually by something that you know than to risk something new. Raising your level of hope that things can get better only to be disappointed is just too scary for most people. It is much safer to never try and not know how you would fare than to try and fail. Failure is only one more step to success, and without taking steps you may never find it.
Say Hello to your true self
Self II is the voice of your subconscious mind, the absolutely human part of your mind that will create creative scenarios and ideas for you to follow. This voice will urge you to pursue your talents and try to create something great, ignoring the critical Self I voice and all of it’s defense minded musings. This voice will tell you about all of your natural potential as well as informing you about the skills and capabilities that you possess that will enable you to act and achieve most anything that you have put your mind towards accomplishing. This ability to rely on ourselves and continue to develop and release our potential, I think is what most people are looking for in life. We have the skills and talents to achieve most things we set our minds toward doing if we just allow our true talents to shine through the naturally negative expectations of ourselves and others. People who have achieved greatness in any field, to some degree, and at some point in their life were able to find, listen to and follow this positive inner voice.
Simple Path to Success
The simple path to success involves, recognizing your own limiting voice, and choosing to ignore it and listen to your inner positive voice which will allow you to succeed in most things that you undertake. Allowing your abilities to rely on yourself will enable you to continue to grow as a person and release your nearly unlimited potential to do whatever it is you set your mind to. Ignoring the negative voice in you that says, nothing but negative and judgmental things, will allow your positive attitude to bloom into whatever you dream for it to be. Being the best that you can be is within you.
All people have the ability within themselves to be a great and powerful person.
Filed under articles and stories by on . Comment.
One of the things we all must deal with as we walk through the world is the loss of a loved one. This loss can be sudden and swift or slow and painful but no matter how this loss occurs the pain of missing someone who is a light in your life is not lessened. There really can be no words to describe the empty void that is left behind. Inevitably life will continue as it must, and you will move on with your daily experiences because that is what we must eventually do. But those activities will always be brushed by the thoughts of our loved ones that have passed away.
As you do, create, strive, succeed, fail, change jobs, have a family, or love in your life, the accomplishments will never cease to be a source of pride for those loved ones we have lost, because they always will be proud.
Never worry about losing them, because they are with you as long as they are in your thoughts. When you need inspiration to create that perfect thing, or courage to take that chance, think of them and you will find it.
Remember and smile, for there were happy times that will never be forgotten.
One of the greatest mysteries of life is death and loss. Do not waste time asking why, because you are focusing on the wrong thing. When you think of why you are focusing on how this loss affects only you and comforted your existence. It will never be fully answered because how are we to know? Will wondering why change anything? It will not. Think about all of the good things a person brought to the table, a smile, a laugh, support, love, strength, courage. Define these many qualities through your loved one and you will see the value in that person, and yes you will miss them, as you should. You will go on to great things and carry their memory with you every step of the way.
Death is Nothing At All
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.All is well.
Crossing the Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
Crossing the Bar
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
note********* The bar referred to is a sandspit or similar promontory at the mouth of a river or harbour where tides have deposited sand over time. To hear the wind and waves moaning off the bar usually means that there is insufficient water to sail over the bar without grounding. Hence the second verse and its reference to a “full tide” or “high water”
Quotes On Losing a Loved One
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I have loved long since and lost awhile. – John Henry Newman
Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity. – Mother Teresa
Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes, a farewell is necessary before you can meet again and meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends. – Richard Bach
For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. – William Penn
Goodbyes are not forever.
Goodbyes are not the end.
They simply mean I’ll miss you
Until we meet again!
(- Author Unknown)
If tears could build a stairway,
And memories a lane,
I’d walk right up to Heaven
And bring you home again.
(~Author Unknown)
Life is eternal and love is immortal; And death is only a horizon, And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. – Rossiter W. Raymond
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. – From a headstone in Ireland
God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled. – Author Unknown
Death ends a life, not a relationship. – Jack Lemmon
Love is stronger than death even though it can’t stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can’t separate people from love. It can’t take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death. – Author Unknown
Thinking and talking about death need not be morbid; they may be quite the opposite. Ignorance and fear of death overshadow life, while knowing and accepting death erases this shadow. – Lily Pincus
To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die. -Thomas Campbell
There are things that we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, and people we can’t live without but have to let go. – Author Unknown
When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. – Author Unknown
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. – Kahlil Gibran
Love here on earth
Love beyond the grave
There are no roads
My love for you can’t pave.
(- T. Sachs)
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
(- Irish Blessing)
Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains. – Kahlil Gibra Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. – Author Unknown
The caterpillar dies so the butterfly could be born. And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one. So, when I die, it will be that I have been transformed from the caterpillar of earth to the butterfly of the universe. – John Harricharan
Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. – Emily Dickinson
When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul laughs for what it has found. – Sufi aphorism
While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. – John Taylor
You and I will meet again,
When we’re least expecting it,
One day in some far off place,
I will recognize your face,
I won’t say goodbye my friend,
For you and I will meet again.
(- Tom Petty)
Filed under articles and stories by on . Comment.
Ron Boynton a Man of Discipline
This week I heard of the passing of Mr. Ron Boynton and I think he would be surprised as I was of the number of memories that I had of the man that had a distinct impact on me. First of all, Mr. Boynton was the Assistant Head Master at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle, Maine from about 1979 until the early 90′s. This was a pretty thankless job from what I could see. He spent all of his time punishing kids who were operating on the wrong side of the school rules, and I don’t think many students liked being caught doing whatever they were doing wrong. I will touch on how he handled the job later. There are two distinct interactions with Mr. Boynton that immediately jump to the front of my mind and for very different reasons.
The first incident occured during my freshman year of high school. I remember I had a substitute teacher in English class and we were headed to the library to do some interesting project, when I and one of my classmates thought it would be a great opportunity to sneak away from the rest of the class and go shoot baskets in the gym. It seemed like a good idea until, I heard Mr. Boynton’s voice across the gym asking us what we thought we were doing, and inviting us to enjoy the comforts of his office for the rest of the afternoon. As a fifteen year old kid, I was like any other kid I think, just trying to figure out where I fit in in the world. I had no idea. This event sticks with me because I know I deserved the punishment I got, which I don’t even remember, but I remembered the talk Mr. Boynton had with me. I can’t say for sure what the exact words were, but the gist of the conversation was, “You seem like a good kid most of the time, except for when you do stupid things. Stop doing stupid things and go to class.” I never skipped another class until I was a senior.
It was that second skip that is the second thought of Mr. Boynton that comes to mind. Toward the end of my senior year, I was involved in an incident with several classmates, where an acquaintance of ours was tragically killed in an auto accident. It affected me pretty deeply because of how I was involved. It occurred during April vacation, so when we returned to school the following Monday, they pulled all together. I thought I was hiding what I was feeling pretty good, but I really didn’t know how I was going to make it through this day, trying to pay attention and learn anything. That is when Mr. Boynton found me, not a group of people but me specifically, and told me that perhaps I should just take a couple of classes off and get it together, he would take care of everything else. The irony of the request was lost on me at the time, but today, I remember the obvious wisdom and compassion with heartfelt gratitude.
I was just one of thousands of kids that had contact with Mr. Boynton over his long career, and I am sure that there were many more who knew him better than me and were closer to him. I think that personally I would like to commend him for performing his job with dignity, consistency, caring and professionalism in the four years that I was a student at Lincoln Academy. My sympathies go out to his family and friends, who surely must be feeling the loss of this man. Most importantly I would like to say thank you to a man who made a subtle, long lasting impact on many kids including myself.
Filed under articles and stories by on . Comment.
